


To Change Reality

by Patience_on_a_Monument



Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 07:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patience_on_a_Monument/pseuds/Patience_on_a_Monument
Summary: Kircheis comes across unexpected news, both fictional and factual





	To Change Reality

“That will be all, Kircheis.”

“Yes, Lord Reinhard.”

Reinhard turned tightly on his heel and swept away down the corridor, Kircheis left to stand and consider whether the look of affront that he had seen on his Lord’s face had been his imagination or not. 

There had been a strange tension thrumming between them for several hours now, and it had left Kircheis feeling off balance and on edge, as though there was some undercurrent of scheming running beneath his feet he wasn’t aware of. He had stolen a glance at von Oberstein during one of their Admiralität meetings to see if there had been any sign on his face, but there was nothing but the normal humourless stare with far too little blinking. Sometimes it felt like the entire man was a robot, and not just his eyes.

The day had started well, with Reinhard coming out of his quarters in an exceptionally good mood; Kircheis would almost swear he had even been bouncing lightly on his heels as he waited for his morning report. While the events of the night had been uneventful there had still been something in Reinhard’s manner that had wilted with each subsequent piece of news. He had settled back on and his shoulders had slumped, before conducting their morning inspection with an unusual formality. Throughout the day meetings and plans that would normally involve Kircheis in at least a minor role now went to Reuenthal or Fahrenheit, in one case even Wittenfeld was invited to consult over him; while he tried to think kindly he could not ignore the sting of that.

The answer to today’s sulk must have been somewhere in that first exchange, but he couldn’t find anything in his notes that contradicted the facts or any previous orders that had been given. They were in-between large fleet movements while they resupplied in the heart of the Empire and the highborns had been ignoring them to engage in petty internal squabbles for the last few weeks, so it wasn’t as though Reinhard could have been expecting any sort of action.

This last encounter had been even cooler than those preceding it, and Kircheis was certain that there was an obvious explanation to this and corresponding fix but the longer he ruminated the more murky it appeared. 

Could there have been something that went unreported to him and somehow gotten to Reinhard first thing? Was he being chastised on an unsatisfactory round-up? He had only been up a short while before Reinhard and had picked up all of the relevant accounts as per usual to collate and parse, but there had been nothing unusual in them or noticeably lost.

Admiral Mittermeier had been on duty before the handover, and was currently using the tank beds rather than proper rest thanks to a slew of staff appointments to make up for losses in their last engagement, and the resulting training regimens to get the newcomers used to his intense fast-paced strategies took all available time. Mittermeier would have the answers if something had slipped past him, so he logged a request for a call with Mittermeier’s staff and went back to the stack of security paperwork he was diverting himself with. 

He had almost got through his administration and was getting to the point of distraction when the comms desk buzzed. Mittermeier was full of energy on the viewscreen, buoyed up by successful fleet manoeuvres but with the pall of fatigue beginning to creep into his face. They gave each other a quick salute and exchange of greetings and then Kircheis got into asking if there had been anything happen recently and checking against his accounts. He only got half through checking the list before Mittermeier held up a hand to stop him. 

“Wait a second, Kircheis. Why exactly are you so sure there has been an oversight? I mean, I’m happy to go along and go through your working but what tipped you off?”

Kircheis stalled for a second, and tried to convince himself that this wasn’t petty and he had grounds.

“It’s… there has been a strange atmosphere around Marquis von Lohengramm today. He seemed this morning to be waiting for some particular good news and when he didn’t receive it he came across as disappointed, and this only grows as the time goes on. I was hoping you would know, if something hadn’t been missed, what he could be waiting for.”

Mittermeier considered, holding a hand to his chin while he went back over everything before a knowing smirk started to spread across his face and Kircheis let out a sigh of relief.

“It sounds like you’ve missed your anniversary.”

This was not the answer to his problems that Kircheis had been expecting. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Which anniversary? The Admiralität is less than a year old, every other major achievement that we have made was not anywhere near this date, what else is there?”

“Evangelin often gets the same way if I forget ours, although I doubt if flowers and chocolate will work as well for the supreme commander as it does for her. I would recommend fixing it as soon as you are able, an emotional and spurned commander is good for none of us working under him!”

Recognition was slow to dawn on Kircheis, but while Mittermeier continued to talk a vague dread began to creep in on him. 

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have an anniversary, there’s nothing…” The words stuck in his throat and he swallowed to dislodge them.

“If you don’t celebrate it I would make sure that you’re both on the same page, it could lead to some horrible fallout.” 

It seemed he was watching the apprehension he himself felt mirror itself onto Mittermeier’s face, his stiff uniform collar a choking hand on his throat. 

“We’re not together.”

Mittermeier was caught between incredulity and laughter. His eyebrows twisted for a moment while he processed this and he half turned away but soon faced the screen again, more sure of himself. 

“That can't be true. The way you two are around each other, the commander with his hand in your hair or how you smile at the back of his head when he's concentrating. Or how you're always together in the evenings, and giving you Barbarossa? Tristan and Beowulf hardly compare to that, it's gorgeous. If you don't want it out in public you don't need to worry - Reinhard still has our total loyalty, and yourself by extension, and nobody will say anything to compromise him or go against his wishes.”

Kircheis stood in silence, tried to summon a rebuttal but unable to manage anything. He took in the fact that the background of the transmission was of the Admiral's quarters and not the bridge, and was inordinately thankful to be given that, at least, but the insinuation that Mittermeier was not alone in his assumption - and worse, that they had conferred about it - made his blood run cold. 

“And is this theory why Admiral von Oberstein has eased off in the last few months?” The thought of owing his new found breathing space to these rumours was not a thought he enjoyed, especially if he had to explain the situation directly to the man. 

Mittermeier laughed back at him. 

“I don't think the dog smells anything, he is remarkably bad at people but good at proposing worst-case scenarios. He may have simply given up the chase as a lost cause. The others of us hardly care about you receiving special treatment when you've done nothing to suggest you don't deserve it, and when you seem to temper the commander's edges a little.” 

Small mercies; there was no way that Oberstein’s crusade for partiality would be improved by whisperings of that sort, and while it was likely to have reached him in some form through barracks gossip he had no reason to believe it, especially when rumours of Reinhard and Friedrich still stung. While he had little reason to object to partiality in principle, it was substantially more difficult to convince Reinhard on the need for distance. 

With his mind full of Oberstein’s machinations he missed the next question from the viewscreen. 

“Pardon?” he asked, mentally clearing himself of cobwebs. 

“Does the commander know you aren't together?”

“Of course he does” Kircheis answered instinctively, though his guts twisted at the thought. “We've been friends for years and that's all it is. We're of the same mind on that. There must be something else the matter today, so thank you for your time, but if you will forgive me I have to be going.” He could hear the strain in his own voice and the terseness of his closer but this was as far as he would go in that conversation, and nothing could come of continuing it. 

“Of course.” They saluted each other and signed off, but not before he saw Mittermeier show an uncharacteristically anxious expression. He would have to apologise to him the next time they met and assure him everything was fine, but for now he had his own keel to right. 

He sat in the dark of his room and thought. The desk light was clicked off and his workstation shut down, then he wandered over to the tiny porthole afforded his cabin; a rare gift compared to the large screens of spacescapes they projected on the bridge. It was impossible that Mittermeier had it right, surely. Kircheis was aware enough of himself and had certainly never broached the subject, but as well as he knew Reinhard, the man was unpredictable at times. 

There were the gifts he would get at times; books, regional delicacies from the planets they visited or rare vintages of wine, but he had always put them down to Reinhard’s disgust at excess when he was given any tributes and the fact that he was always there to pass them on to. He had never given it any more thought than that, but there was now a second reading to everything that could be made to almost everything and the uncertainty was completely foreign to him. 

It was no use lying to himself; it was something he had fantasised about but that was as far as it could go. Reinhard was a league of his own, peerless in the universe. A shooting star with Kircheis simply caught in his gravity. He was well aware of his own qualities, but when held up to compare against someone so beautiful, intelligent and a natural leader - a Kaiser - there was no way to equate them. Above all that Reinhard was human, letting Kircheis see his flaws and support him, to do what he couldn’t alone, be his shadow and right hand. In return Kircheis was given absolute trust and a purpose to apply himself to rather than living quietly and never leaving Odin. Would changing what they were change the balance? Could it ruin it? Surely something like that was to be handled with kid gloves; it was too precious to spoil.

The stars winked back at him as though taunting him, reminding him of the destiny they had promised to grasp together. That night in the Academy was so long ago, and they had come so far.

He slumped his shoulders and gave up on trying to navigate a way through the maelstrom of his own feelings and the thoughts of the interrogative stares of the rest of the Admirals, ruling it a meaningless misinterpretation of Reinhard’s generosity. The only way it could possibly cause harm if an enemy mentioned the rumours to Reinhard’s face, as his tolerance for that brand of slander was infamously weak, and in that case there would be others around now to restrain him. 

The clock beeped quietly from where he had set it next to his desk, and he muted the alarm and made to move to the door. His finger hovered above the door switch as the occasion registered.

Dinner with Reinhard. 

Their meals together had become a habit when Reinhard stopped eating with the other officers of the Brünhild in order to work, although part of Kircheis believed he felt the difference in rank too acutely. When the cooks reported that nothing had been ordered to his quarters during the time he cloistered himself Kircheis had brought it upon himself to organise that they ate together at least once a week in the hope that it would remind Reinhard that ambition alone could not sustain a body.

It also served as one of the highlights of Kircheis’ week; a time where they were not bound to an form of rank or work and could simply be themselves, a chance they too rarely saw in the never-ending turmoil they had launched themselves into. There had been a time where they could spend every moment together with no expectations: no-name ensigns doing their menial tasks together to halve the time, bunking in the same dorms at the academy and sneaking under each other’s sheets to read of naval exploits by torchlight, getting into play-fights when they came out of school before rushing home for another of Annerose’s cakes. It was a struggle to keep ahold of their past in the madness of their present, and every small gesture was priceless. 

He wasn’t going to let his overthinking ruin this, and so opened the door and hurried over to Reinhard’s door, pushing all those ideas to the back of his mind. 

Therefore when Reinhard met him at the door with a soft smile and a proffered half-full glass of red wine to match his own, backlit by a candlelit table, Kircheis was momentarily stunned. There was nothing particularly different between this and his normal behaviour, but it felt different. It was different. 

He managed to accept the glass without skipping a beat as a smile crept up on him. 

“Good evening. I sorely needed this,” he said, with complete honesty.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” Reinhard replied.

As he turned back to the table in the parlour a spectacular array was revealed of sauces and and tiny prepared vegetables surrounding two pristine roast partridge. It couldn’t compare to the feasts of the highborn but for Reinhard it certainly seemed more extravagant than he normally preferred, and would have certainly required a special requisition to the kitchens to put in with their resupply order. Time and preparation. Another chill went through him.

They took their places and made a start. Kircheis tackled it as well as he could, pulling meat from the keel with a slow determination and trying to not ping a bone into Reinhard’s eye through the slip of a knife. Meanwhile Reinhard was deftly picking the bird apart as though he had been doing it all his life, even though Kircheis had seen for himself the bare bones meals the von Müsels had been reduced to when Sebastian had delved too deep into the bottle. 

Long fingers and delicate movements. 

Reinhard caught him staring and tutted, although not unkindly.

“While I can only commend you on your choice of butchery teacher, the food will get cold if you don’t apply that borrowed knowledge.”

His face burned to match his hair and he re-applied himself to his partridge. Curse Mittermeier.

In the time that it took Kircheis to strip half the bird Reinhard had finished and was idly pushing a micro carrot around his plate, chin in his hand as he watched Kircheis struggle.

A hand wove into his fringe and he put down his cutlery, defeated. 

“You look distracted, is there something on your mind? You’re always more interesting to watch when you’re sure of yourself, you know. It makes your eyes shine like the stars.”

Kircheis swallowed and kept his eyes low, trying to read his future in the peppercorns. 

“It’s alright that you forgot, you know. I don’t hold grudges for such things.” Reinhard’s voice was soft, an apology. 

Kircheis tried not to panic. He had misread his circumstances to catastrophic effect and was by now in way over his head.

Reinhard took note of the sudden stiffness of Kircheis’ spine, and sat straighter to mirror him as he brought his hand back to rest on its other. 

Kircheis missed it.

“Did I say something wrong?” Reinhard asked, and his voice was between a command and a plea.

“It’s nothing, Lord Reinhard.” He winced at how obvious the strain in his words sounded, and the involuntary return of the honorific Reinhard showed such disregard towards when it was just them. 

“I see,” came back the reply, and the tone was now cold.

This isn’t how he handled things normally, and if he didn’t do something now something really would be ruined. 

He steadied himself and looked directly at Reinhard, the ice melting in those shockingly blue eyes as he watched purpose regain its place. If anything were to fix this situation, it would be candour. 

“What are we to each other? Are we dating?”

Reinhard recoiled as if struck, the colour the wine had brought to his cheeks pouring back out of him.

“Isn’t it obvious? Have I not been plain?”

“Not to me.”

Reinhard let out a long, ragged sigh and dropped his head into his hands. All Kircheis could do was watch as the tips of his ears turned rosey and wait for the next move. It was a feeling he relished to know that the Reinhard who reacted in such a manner was one that only existed between the two of them, and that Reinhard was relaxed enough around him to-

That train of thought was interrupted as Reinhard lunged forward across the table to catch him in a kiss. 

He couldn’t think, and instead sat rigidly while Reinhard desperately pressed in, both of their eyes open and staring at each other until he pulled back away before Kircheis could react. After several moments of unfocussed shock he looked to Reinhard, who was sitting tense with his fists balled on his knees, an intense expression of horror and embarrassment on his face. He could understand what Reinhard was thinking - that he had moved out of turn and tarnished everything - the same things that he had worried about. 

There was no adequate response that he could give, so instead he stood to lean over the table and stole a kiss of his own. 

Reinhard startled in turn and then hungrily pushed back in. Kircheis smiled into the kiss, flames licking through his chest as he dared to lick along Reinhard’s lower lip and got a groan in response, Reinhard gripping onto his shoulder. 

They almost overbalanced so Kircheis put a hand down to bear his weight, missing the bare spot of table he had meant to target and instead caught the edge of his fork which arced through the air and covering the front of his dress uniform in vinaigrette and caramelised shallot. 

They stopped mid-motion then fall apart; Kircheis rubbing madly at the stain with a wetted napkin before it set and Reinhard bursting out into a laugh that rolled and pealed until Kircheis gave up on his uniform and laughed along with him, like they had when they were boys. 

The laughter settled eventually with the two of them bracing themselves on the table, as the cold of the air-drying water on his stomach began to seep into Kircheis and Reinhard combed his fringe back into place with those same long fingers.

“I had wondered why you were taking it so slowly,” he whispered ruefully, making wary eye contact. “Now it makes more sense. I had convinced myself that you had wanted to be courted, and that I should be waiting for you…”

Kircheis tried, and failed, to keep from gaping as guilt clawed at his chest. 

“How long have we been dating, Reinhard?”

Reinhard’s gaze skittered off to one side again, and this time his blush was unmistakable.

“I thought that I had been pretty obvious with Brünhild,” he managed at length, although his voice stayed clear and loud.

Kircheis stared, snickered, then smiled. Brünhild, the valkyrie who loved Siegfried. In retrospect it really was staggeringly obvious. He had compounded it himself by first inviting Reinhard for dinner under the pretext of testing the chefs on the new flagship.

“I feel like a fool.” It was quite an understatement, but it had to be said. Reinhard had the good grace to laugh in return, the mortification slowly leaving him. 

“You look like a fool as well,” he said and gestured to the darkened patch of dark fabric across Kircheis’ abdomen, still speckled with partridge particles. “You can borrow one of mine if you like; I don’t have any in the right rank any more but if you walk fast enough nobody should notice.”

Kircheis had a sudden recollection of Mittermeier’s suspicions, and vehemently shook his head. 

“They’re a little too fitted for that, Reinhard. Especially after all those extra centimeters.”

It was unlike Reinhard to leave himself open like that, and he got a playful glare in return for the jibe.

“I could still take you in a fight,” Reinhard countered, easily slipping into the braggadocio of their childhood.

“We’ll have to set some time aside for a rematch,” Kircheis said as he pulled his uniform jacket open to reveal a substantial damp patch spreading over the shirt underneath. He unbuttoned it carefully, sucking in a breath as he peeled the fabric from his skin to let it breathe. He felt Reinhard’s stare on him and dropped the edges of the shirt before settling his weight back on his heels. They’d seen each other in all states of undress before, but this was different. His blood heated and heart pounded as they watched each other like circling predators.

Reinhard slunk towards him, a hand stretched out in slow movements as though he were concerned Kircheis would bolt, but there was nothing to fear for either of them.

A fingertip slipped along his rib and nestled in his shirt. Kircheis shuddered, which prompted a smug smirk from his other half and more fingers to curve along his chest as Reinhard stepped in close. Kircheis settled his hands on hips that were more muscled than Reinhard’s image would suggest, signifying only a fraction - the least exceptional - facet of his power.

There was the sort of imminence and charge to the air like that brought by a standoff in Seffl particles. All of their years of friendship were a tangible presence between them; a tension that had to transmogrify or snap.

The certainty that filled him was reflected in Reinhard’s eyes, and this time he cursed himself for misreading his friend so completely and losing them so much time. Reinhard seemed giddy and smug the way he did after a well-fought fight but warmer - it was everything that Kircheis loved about him. 

They both moved at the same time and met in the middle, like they always did.

**Author's Note:**

> Six years after watching the series, here I am. Still trying these guys out, I'm such a slave to LoGH canon I'm not sure how I feel. This should be taking place somewhere in February 797 UC. Apologies for this trainwreck of tropes, and for the clumsy dodging of The Oberstein Problem.
> 
> I'm using the novel spellings since they are actual names, so I'm guessing that's what was intended, but Wittenfeld will never not be strange for me.


End file.
